BMW 335i Manual Touring
Discussion
A familiar PH tale. I wasn’t really looking for a new car. Well that’s not true, I spend most of my spare hours looking at cars, it’s just that I don’t normally actually buy any of them.
Up until the beginning of the year, our family ‘bus’ was an E61 525i. It was my sixth BMW having previously had an E34 Alpina B3.5, an E36 328i Sport, an E39 528i, An E46 330i Touring and E39 Alpina B10 V8. The 525i was a lovely thing but we’d had it a few years and it was at an age and mileage where it was giving us the odd headache. Nothing major but I fancied a change and in particular wanted some more poke. The N53 in the 525i is ultimately ‘quick enough’ but it needs a bit of spanking to make it go which didn’t sit that well with family motoring. I wanted something estate flavoured and petrol powered with decent comfort levels. I spent a long time looking for interesting BMW options. Originally I’d wanted an E91 330i Manual. They do just about exist but of the 2 or 3 that I ever saw for sale, all were absolute base spec. I at least wanted idrive so that I could add carplay easily. An E91 335i would have been an option then but most were very strong money for the age of car. I liked the idea of an F11 535i or 550i but 550i’s come with horror stories and 535i’s barely exist. I did find one candidate, but it sold before I got to see it.
I started to take the BMW blinkers off and looked further afield and in January this year, I bought a 2011 Audi S4 Avant with DSG box. This car ticked so many boxes. It was stuffed full of optional extras, had absolutely loads of shove (400 bhp+ with pulley and remap) and where we live 4wd was a potentially useful thing too. I’ve put about 4k miles on the Audi but for some reason I never felt truly at home in it. There isn’t anything I can point my finger at that I truly don’t like. Lots of things are different to my BMW’s but not necessarily worse. The only thing I didn’t love was the ACC. Everyone raves about this but I find it annoying on motorways though admittedly useful on single carriageways. I’d have preferred it if you could select adaptive or regular but you can’t. It was my second DSG equipped car and I’m not sure that I prefer it over a conventional auto. If it did manual mode better I’d forgive it more but I find it frustrating to drive in manual and less smooth than a torque converter in auto. But actually, overall the Audi is a great car but I’m clearly a BMW fan boi and I’m going to have to accept that.
The S4 that has only lasted 4 months before it's replacement has arrived. Still for sale for the time being.
I’d have given the Audi much longer to get under my skin but a few weeks ago I got an ebay alert to say that there was a new listing that matched one of my my saved searches that I had set up for petrol estate BMW’s with 3l+ engine and manual boxes. I set that search up well before I bought the Audi and it almost never binged.
What was listed was an auction for an 06 BMW 335i Touring with a manual box, Evolve remap and Quaiffe LSD. And, it was local. Living in the North East, this almost never happens. Every interesting car I buy normally involves many hours of travel to faraway lands. There were many things about this car I didn’t immediately love. It was silver with black leather which is about as dull as it gets. The seats were manual and unheated and I really do love a heated seat and memory seats make life much easier for when Mrs GW steals my car and sets the seat to amputee dwarf setting. Bodywork was tatty too and it had done 185k miles. Not a lot going for it then but it did have a pistonheads sticker in the rear window and when I checked my watch while looking at the advert, the time was 3.35. Being an entirely rational person, I took that as sign that I must go and see it immediately. On a side note, never browse car classifieds at 11 minutes past 9. That was an expensive mistake.
The thing that really appealed about this car was that it was a modern(ish), driver focused six cylinder BMW estate with a manual box. There just aren’t that many like this out there. It looks like there are only about 40 manual 335i Tourings in the UK. I went over that evening in biblical rain. The car drove fine but it really was far too wet to drive it in any meaningful way but everything seemed to more or less work. The bodywork was indeed scruffy but probably looked better for being soaked. Mechanically everything seemed in order and I’m always encouraged when a car has fresh premium tyres. The seller had already given me a price that he’d be happy to the end the auction for. I hate haggling and the price seemed a fair one so a deal was done. I picked it up a week later. Wet again but I was able to determine that it drove very well and that the LSD and spikier delivery means that it feels much livelier that most BMW’s that I’ve driven. I did notice some vibration from the rear when the car was cold that seemed to disappear with heat.
The spec is a mixed bag. It has electric seat bolster which I really like. It has pro nav, DAB and Bluetooth but base stereo. It has halogen lights. It does have front and rear parking sensors which is good.
This is so far the only photo I've got of the whole of the BMW. It's sat in my garage ever since arrival while I've seen to some jobs on it. Must sort that out soon!
While I still had the Audi, I decided to take my time to get a few bits sorted on the car before I put it into use. The vibration could be a number of things but being reasonably familiar with BMW’s and particularly with this cars mileage, I decided I’d replace the prop bearing and flexible coupling as a matter of course. And since that involved removing so much of the underside of the car, I decided that would also be a really good time to do some rust prevention, the gearshift linkage bushes and gearbox and diff fluids. The biggest headache with all of this was getting the exhaust on and off. They weigh a lot and with the car on axles stands, I just didn’t have the height to take it off in any kind of elegant manner. More of a barely controlled free fall onto my chest. Refitting later on was arguably worse. Oh and I had one snapped exhaust stud which I would consider as getting off lightly but still an utter turd of a job trying to remove what was left of the snapped stud.
Getting this on and off wasn't much fun!
To be honest the prop bearing and coupling looked in pretty good order but it’s reassuring to know that they’re now brand new. The gearshift bushes were also pretty good but with them and the fresh box oil, I can honestly say it now has the best BMW gearshift I’ve ever experienced. Lovely and positive and closer my MX5’s than my previous BMW’s.
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/XR55MfN8[/url]
Gearbox and shifter getting some attention.
With the old prop stuff looking good, the vibration could therefore really only relate to the driveshafts, diff or wheels/tyres. If it’s the diff or driveshafts, those problems will have to be investigated another time. But since all four wheels were pretty scabby, I sent those off to be refurbed and they’d therefore get rebalanced too. Interestingly the company refurbishing them found cracks in both rear wheels and have had to weld them. Could maybe be the issue…
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/YxVFFRHJ[/url][url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/H4Ff3g6i[/url]
New shiny bits.
Somewhat less shiny.
While under the car I noticed that gearbox was fairly well coated in engine oil. It seems N54’s like to leak from the oil filter housing, cam cover gasket or the sump gasket. The latter being worst case scenario as it’s a sub frame out job. Guess where mine is leaking! Yep, cam cover and oil filter both dry as a bone. That’s another job on the to-do list for further down the line.
While on stands, I spent a fair bit of time tackling rust with a wire brush, Hydrate 80 and Dynax UB. Main areas were the rear sub frame which was no surprise. It’s something I might tackle properly at some point but it’s not something I’d do on axle stands so I really need to get myself a lift first. Anyway, I feel better that it’s got some protection on for now.
Some rust prevention being done.
I’ve addressed loads of other little odds and sods. Missing clips. Loose heat shields. Replaced the center heat shields. Broken boot floor handle. Missing tow bracket and screw driver. I replaced the rear bumper with a used one as the original had a crack. I removed a tow bar that looked like it has lived in the sea. Utterly disgusting it was. The battery tray was a little corroded so I treated and painted that. It got a new mirror casing and both mirror glasses were replaced. New rear badge and wheel badges and I fixed a common issue where the rear wiper drive pin was stuck.
I found a set of 17” winter wheels with almost new cross climate tyres on them and also pair of OE roof bars. The plastic on the roof bars was completely grey and I couldn’t decide if they were sun bleached or meant to be like that. I attacked them with some trim restorer and they’re black now whether they’re meant to be or not!
Look at the state of this tow bar! The electrical hook up was hanging on by sheer will power.
Back end looking somewhat better after some TLC and a new bumper. Everything underneath there has now been cleaned or painted, or rust proofed or a bit of everything.
I spent a bit of time cleaning the interior and treating the leather though actually things were pretty good inside. I’ve fitted a heated seat switch panel in readiness for finding some heated seats. I’ve actually nearly replaced the seats twice. The first time I drove 100 miles to pick up some ‘holy grail’ seats that had memory, lumbar, bolster and heating. Except when I got there, they turned out not to be heated after all. Honest mistake by the seller but frustrating. I then bid on a set of red/brown seats on ebay. They had lumbar, heat and bolsters but manual movement but I loved the idea of brightening up the interior with some colour but alas they went for more than I was happy to spend. I’ll come back to that at some point.
I’ve ordered an Andream carplay unit. I had this in the E61 as well. It’s not absolutely perfect but was an excellent addition and totally modernised navigation and music playing etc.
While shuffling the car around the garage I got an engine light relating to cam position error. When I delved into this a bit there seemed to be two quite common issues that cause this, firstly if the engine is low on oil it can stick the vanos solenids and secondly that vanos solenoids can just be stuck anyway and need cleaning or replacement. The idrive said the oil level was about in the middle (why no dip stick BMW? WHY?) so I popped half a litre in and then took each vanos solenoid out to clean. I spotted a tip online about connecting them up to a 9v battery to fire them while cleaning so I did that and used some MAF cleaner. Error seems to have gone for now but I do have some spare cam position sensors in the garage so if it comes back I might try those next.
Future plans are numerous. I want to upgrade the base stereo with an amp and better speakers. I don’t want an ‘install’ or a move away from OEM controls etc but just after better sound. Got my eyes on the vibe amp and speaker kit.
Lots of bodywork attention. I think the front bumper needs a respray and the bonnet has enough stone chips that would probably be best being sprayed too. Both rear arches have very early onset of bubbling and there is a small crease in the driver side front arch and a huge stone chip on the passenger side front wing. Even though the used bumper that I bought for the rear is much better than the one that came off, it could probably use some paint too. But where do you stop? The car doesn’t need to be mint but I’d like it to be tidy. I’ll speak to some body shops and see what sounds sensible.
I need to sort that sump leak at some point. I think I’d probably combine that with full front subframe overhaul. The rear would then be on the hit list but I need a proper lift first. In the shorter term one of the rear dampers needs a new bump stop which shouldn’t be too tricky.
Most of the usual N54 issues seem to have been addressed already but I’ll do some homework on that and see if there is anything I should be doing.
I might look at headlight upgrade options in due course as well.
Up until the beginning of the year, our family ‘bus’ was an E61 525i. It was my sixth BMW having previously had an E34 Alpina B3.5, an E36 328i Sport, an E39 528i, An E46 330i Touring and E39 Alpina B10 V8. The 525i was a lovely thing but we’d had it a few years and it was at an age and mileage where it was giving us the odd headache. Nothing major but I fancied a change and in particular wanted some more poke. The N53 in the 525i is ultimately ‘quick enough’ but it needs a bit of spanking to make it go which didn’t sit that well with family motoring. I wanted something estate flavoured and petrol powered with decent comfort levels. I spent a long time looking for interesting BMW options. Originally I’d wanted an E91 330i Manual. They do just about exist but of the 2 or 3 that I ever saw for sale, all were absolute base spec. I at least wanted idrive so that I could add carplay easily. An E91 335i would have been an option then but most were very strong money for the age of car. I liked the idea of an F11 535i or 550i but 550i’s come with horror stories and 535i’s barely exist. I did find one candidate, but it sold before I got to see it.
I started to take the BMW blinkers off and looked further afield and in January this year, I bought a 2011 Audi S4 Avant with DSG box. This car ticked so many boxes. It was stuffed full of optional extras, had absolutely loads of shove (400 bhp+ with pulley and remap) and where we live 4wd was a potentially useful thing too. I’ve put about 4k miles on the Audi but for some reason I never felt truly at home in it. There isn’t anything I can point my finger at that I truly don’t like. Lots of things are different to my BMW’s but not necessarily worse. The only thing I didn’t love was the ACC. Everyone raves about this but I find it annoying on motorways though admittedly useful on single carriageways. I’d have preferred it if you could select adaptive or regular but you can’t. It was my second DSG equipped car and I’m not sure that I prefer it over a conventional auto. If it did manual mode better I’d forgive it more but I find it frustrating to drive in manual and less smooth than a torque converter in auto. But actually, overall the Audi is a great car but I’m clearly a BMW fan boi and I’m going to have to accept that.
The S4 that has only lasted 4 months before it's replacement has arrived. Still for sale for the time being.
I’d have given the Audi much longer to get under my skin but a few weeks ago I got an ebay alert to say that there was a new listing that matched one of my my saved searches that I had set up for petrol estate BMW’s with 3l+ engine and manual boxes. I set that search up well before I bought the Audi and it almost never binged.
What was listed was an auction for an 06 BMW 335i Touring with a manual box, Evolve remap and Quaiffe LSD. And, it was local. Living in the North East, this almost never happens. Every interesting car I buy normally involves many hours of travel to faraway lands. There were many things about this car I didn’t immediately love. It was silver with black leather which is about as dull as it gets. The seats were manual and unheated and I really do love a heated seat and memory seats make life much easier for when Mrs GW steals my car and sets the seat to amputee dwarf setting. Bodywork was tatty too and it had done 185k miles. Not a lot going for it then but it did have a pistonheads sticker in the rear window and when I checked my watch while looking at the advert, the time was 3.35. Being an entirely rational person, I took that as sign that I must go and see it immediately. On a side note, never browse car classifieds at 11 minutes past 9. That was an expensive mistake.
The thing that really appealed about this car was that it was a modern(ish), driver focused six cylinder BMW estate with a manual box. There just aren’t that many like this out there. It looks like there are only about 40 manual 335i Tourings in the UK. I went over that evening in biblical rain. The car drove fine but it really was far too wet to drive it in any meaningful way but everything seemed to more or less work. The bodywork was indeed scruffy but probably looked better for being soaked. Mechanically everything seemed in order and I’m always encouraged when a car has fresh premium tyres. The seller had already given me a price that he’d be happy to the end the auction for. I hate haggling and the price seemed a fair one so a deal was done. I picked it up a week later. Wet again but I was able to determine that it drove very well and that the LSD and spikier delivery means that it feels much livelier that most BMW’s that I’ve driven. I did notice some vibration from the rear when the car was cold that seemed to disappear with heat.
The spec is a mixed bag. It has electric seat bolster which I really like. It has pro nav, DAB and Bluetooth but base stereo. It has halogen lights. It does have front and rear parking sensors which is good.
This is so far the only photo I've got of the whole of the BMW. It's sat in my garage ever since arrival while I've seen to some jobs on it. Must sort that out soon!
While I still had the Audi, I decided to take my time to get a few bits sorted on the car before I put it into use. The vibration could be a number of things but being reasonably familiar with BMW’s and particularly with this cars mileage, I decided I’d replace the prop bearing and flexible coupling as a matter of course. And since that involved removing so much of the underside of the car, I decided that would also be a really good time to do some rust prevention, the gearshift linkage bushes and gearbox and diff fluids. The biggest headache with all of this was getting the exhaust on and off. They weigh a lot and with the car on axles stands, I just didn’t have the height to take it off in any kind of elegant manner. More of a barely controlled free fall onto my chest. Refitting later on was arguably worse. Oh and I had one snapped exhaust stud which I would consider as getting off lightly but still an utter turd of a job trying to remove what was left of the snapped stud.
Getting this on and off wasn't much fun!
To be honest the prop bearing and coupling looked in pretty good order but it’s reassuring to know that they’re now brand new. The gearshift bushes were also pretty good but with them and the fresh box oil, I can honestly say it now has the best BMW gearshift I’ve ever experienced. Lovely and positive and closer my MX5’s than my previous BMW’s.
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/XR55MfN8[/url]Gearbox and shifter getting some attention.
With the old prop stuff looking good, the vibration could therefore really only relate to the driveshafts, diff or wheels/tyres. If it’s the diff or driveshafts, those problems will have to be investigated another time. But since all four wheels were pretty scabby, I sent those off to be refurbed and they’d therefore get rebalanced too. Interestingly the company refurbishing them found cracks in both rear wheels and have had to weld them. Could maybe be the issue…
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/YxVFFRHJ[/url][url]|https://thumbsnap.com/H4Ff3g6i[/url]New shiny bits.
Somewhat less shiny.
While under the car I noticed that gearbox was fairly well coated in engine oil. It seems N54’s like to leak from the oil filter housing, cam cover gasket or the sump gasket. The latter being worst case scenario as it’s a sub frame out job. Guess where mine is leaking! Yep, cam cover and oil filter both dry as a bone. That’s another job on the to-do list for further down the line.
While on stands, I spent a fair bit of time tackling rust with a wire brush, Hydrate 80 and Dynax UB. Main areas were the rear sub frame which was no surprise. It’s something I might tackle properly at some point but it’s not something I’d do on axle stands so I really need to get myself a lift first. Anyway, I feel better that it’s got some protection on for now.
Some rust prevention being done.
I’ve addressed loads of other little odds and sods. Missing clips. Loose heat shields. Replaced the center heat shields. Broken boot floor handle. Missing tow bracket and screw driver. I replaced the rear bumper with a used one as the original had a crack. I removed a tow bar that looked like it has lived in the sea. Utterly disgusting it was. The battery tray was a little corroded so I treated and painted that. It got a new mirror casing and both mirror glasses were replaced. New rear badge and wheel badges and I fixed a common issue where the rear wiper drive pin was stuck.
I found a set of 17” winter wheels with almost new cross climate tyres on them and also pair of OE roof bars. The plastic on the roof bars was completely grey and I couldn’t decide if they were sun bleached or meant to be like that. I attacked them with some trim restorer and they’re black now whether they’re meant to be or not!
Look at the state of this tow bar! The electrical hook up was hanging on by sheer will power.
Back end looking somewhat better after some TLC and a new bumper. Everything underneath there has now been cleaned or painted, or rust proofed or a bit of everything.
I spent a bit of time cleaning the interior and treating the leather though actually things were pretty good inside. I’ve fitted a heated seat switch panel in readiness for finding some heated seats. I’ve actually nearly replaced the seats twice. The first time I drove 100 miles to pick up some ‘holy grail’ seats that had memory, lumbar, bolster and heating. Except when I got there, they turned out not to be heated after all. Honest mistake by the seller but frustrating. I then bid on a set of red/brown seats on ebay. They had lumbar, heat and bolsters but manual movement but I loved the idea of brightening up the interior with some colour but alas they went for more than I was happy to spend. I’ll come back to that at some point.
I’ve ordered an Andream carplay unit. I had this in the E61 as well. It’s not absolutely perfect but was an excellent addition and totally modernised navigation and music playing etc.
While shuffling the car around the garage I got an engine light relating to cam position error. When I delved into this a bit there seemed to be two quite common issues that cause this, firstly if the engine is low on oil it can stick the vanos solenids and secondly that vanos solenoids can just be stuck anyway and need cleaning or replacement. The idrive said the oil level was about in the middle (why no dip stick BMW? WHY?) so I popped half a litre in and then took each vanos solenoid out to clean. I spotted a tip online about connecting them up to a 9v battery to fire them while cleaning so I did that and used some MAF cleaner. Error seems to have gone for now but I do have some spare cam position sensors in the garage so if it comes back I might try those next.
Future plans are numerous. I want to upgrade the base stereo with an amp and better speakers. I don’t want an ‘install’ or a move away from OEM controls etc but just after better sound. Got my eyes on the vibe amp and speaker kit.
Lots of bodywork attention. I think the front bumper needs a respray and the bonnet has enough stone chips that would probably be best being sprayed too. Both rear arches have very early onset of bubbling and there is a small crease in the driver side front arch and a huge stone chip on the passenger side front wing. Even though the used bumper that I bought for the rear is much better than the one that came off, it could probably use some paint too. But where do you stop? The car doesn’t need to be mint but I’d like it to be tidy. I’ll speak to some body shops and see what sounds sensible.
I need to sort that sump leak at some point. I think I’d probably combine that with full front subframe overhaul. The rear would then be on the hit list but I need a proper lift first. In the shorter term one of the rear dampers needs a new bump stop which shouldn’t be too tricky.
Most of the usual N54 issues seem to have been addressed already but I’ll do some homework on that and see if there is anything I should be doing.
I might look at headlight upgrade options in due course as well.
Edited by Gad-Westy on Tuesday 16th May 20:08
I'm not the first PH'er to own this car. These threads were linked on the E91 bearding thread.
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Also a very similar car in terms of factory spec and reg:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Also a very similar car in terms of factory spec and reg:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Bobupndown said:
"memory seats make life much easier for when Mrs GW steals my car and sets the seat to amputee dwarf setting"
I don't know how she does it. She's only two inches shorter than me but there are times when I almost cannot get between the seat and steering wheel. Our E61 had comfort seats and I loved the memory on key thing and the seats sort of greeting you and then the steering wheel and bolsters getting into position once you're sat down. The audi does some of that too but it's wasted on me in that car as mrs GW refuses to drive it. Good to see another manual boxed, N54 wagon on here! My own is the last of the thread links you posted.
With regards to rust prevention - I’d recommend whipping the carpet-like rear arch liners out and having a good check behind them. My arch lips were bubbling like yours seem to be, and the whole inner arch sections are rotten.
Be interested to see how you go about getting full-spec seats. Something I’d like to do with mine.
With regards to rust prevention - I’d recommend whipping the carpet-like rear arch liners out and having a good check behind them. My arch lips were bubbling like yours seem to be, and the whole inner arch sections are rotten.
Be interested to see how you go about getting full-spec seats. Something I’d like to do with mine.
I do like an E91!
I often think I should have bought a touring instead of my coupe but I was seduced by the better spec (heated electric seats, xenon’s, Hi Fi pro). And it was minutes away.
The original owners of petrol tourings were very stingy with the spec when buying new! I’ve head to settle for a base spec 330 manual.
I know it’s frowned upon but I managed to use decent quality LEF bulbs in the halogen lights on the 125i and still pass an MOT. The beam pattern was fine and they were much better than halogen bulbs and loads cheaper than a xenon retrofit.
I often think I should have bought a touring instead of my coupe but I was seduced by the better spec (heated electric seats, xenon’s, Hi Fi pro). And it was minutes away.
The original owners of petrol tourings were very stingy with the spec when buying new! I’ve head to settle for a base spec 330 manual.
I know it’s frowned upon but I managed to use decent quality LEF bulbs in the halogen lights on the 125i and still pass an MOT. The beam pattern was fine and they were much better than halogen bulbs and loads cheaper than a xenon retrofit.
Shall watch this with interestchristhreadgill said:
Good to see another manual boxed, N54 wagon on here! My own is the last of the thread links you posted.
With regards to rust prevention - I’d recommend whipping the carpet-like rear arch liners out and having a good check behind them. My arch lips were bubbling like yours seem to be, and the whole inner arch sections are rotten.
Be interested to see how you go about getting full-spec seats. Something I’d like to do with mine.
Cheers. Your's sounds like an absolute animal. Reg numbers are very close together and specs are very similar. With regards to rust prevention - I’d recommend whipping the carpet-like rear arch liners out and having a good check behind them. My arch lips were bubbling like yours seem to be, and the whole inner arch sections are rotten.
Be interested to see how you go about getting full-spec seats. Something I’d like to do with mine.
I need to get someone to have a really good look over the bodywork and and arches. I don't want anything to get worse and the car is already quite tatty in places. I need to weigh up options there as costs could really mount up on that one but rear arches inside and out seems like a good place to start.
I'll update the thread if I ever find some seats. Not easy to find. If I'm still struggling to find memory seats with all the adjustments I'll probably just pick up some heated seats with at least the bolster adjustment. They're much easier to come by.
Court_S said:
I do like an E91!
I often think I should have bought a touring instead of my coupe but I was seduced by the better spec (heated electric seats, xenon’s, Hi Fi pro). And it was minutes away.
The original owners of petrol tourings were very stingy with the spec when buying new! I’ve head to settle for a base spec 330 manual.
I know it’s frowned upon but I managed to use decent quality LEF bulbs in the halogen lights on the 125i and still pass an MOT. The beam pattern was fine and they were much better than halogen bulbs and loads cheaper than a xenon retrofit.
The Coupes always seem way better specced. I guess they were more of an indulgence than the more practical versions. When I've been looking for seats all of the better specced seats seem to be from an E92 or E93 and the more interesting colours. Unfortunately the seat belt mountings are different.I often think I should have bought a touring instead of my coupe but I was seduced by the better spec (heated electric seats, xenon’s, Hi Fi pro). And it was minutes away.
The original owners of petrol tourings were very stingy with the spec when buying new! I’ve head to settle for a base spec 330 manual.
I know it’s frowned upon but I managed to use decent quality LEF bulbs in the halogen lights on the 125i and still pass an MOT. The beam pattern was fine and they were much better than halogen bulbs and loads cheaper than a xenon retrofit.
I think you mentioned on another thread about your LED's. Do you have a link the bulbs you used? Any issues with light error warnings? Easy install?
helix402 said:
Welcome to the E91 335 club. Mine drinks the other fuel!
Thanks. I must admit, looking back, if I 'd opened my mind up to diesels back when I first started to look for a replacement for the E61, I'd have had far more choice. Bigger petrol engines were really falling out of fashion in this era. I do like a petrol straight six though...
Jhonno said:
I was looking at these a few years back.. I'll agree with the specs! Very difficult to find one with a decent spec!
Yep. Very narrow selection pool. Petrol BMW's of the is era are fairly rare full stop. Manuals even more so. I think as well that so many BMW's were bought on lease or finance deals and I just don't think people go to town on the options as much as they used to. I know when I had earlier BMW's the specs could vary tremendously from car to car but most of these E91's are pretty basic. This one has got 'enough' but I'll probably upgrade the sound system and seats at some point. We'll see how I feel about the headlights once winter is here. I think the rest is fine. Bit of an update. 10 days since I last posted and up until last night the car hadn't moved in that time. I wanted to sell my S4 first rather than insuring and taxing the BMW at the same time. The Audi sold on Thursday night. Despite hating selling cars privately and dealing with the odd cretin online the actual sale was a breeze in the end. Sold to a really enthusiastic guy and seems to have gone to good home.
So with the Audi out of the way, yesterday the BMW got insurance and tax and some more TLC. It had been sat on winter wheels with cross climate 2's on that I'd picked up on ebay. They were on while my other wheels were repainted. So I swapped those over. It got a new numberplate and new rear badge. And I fitted the Andream unit. That was a doddle to fit on the E61 but a bit of pain on the E91. There is no room behind the radio/sat nav unit for the wiring connector block and not enough length on the cable to tuck it out the way while the radio is out. In the end I had to take the entire fascia out so that I could trap the block behind it to one side. Took me ages to figure out a solution. I was going to fit a reverse camera at the same time but I think I'll leave it for a week or two for my hand lacerations to recede! The andream unit works great though. It's less glitchy than the E61 install so far. Connects straight to my phone wirelessly and has worked flawlessly so far. No need to run an aux cable either which I really like as there is really no sign at all that this isn't OE other than the fact that an iphone let alone car play wasn't invented in 2006 when this car was built!
The car needs to take us to Skye next week so I took it out last night for a bit of a shake down. Two faults I noticed. Firstly the air con is feeble. I'll get it pressure tested when I have time but I will need to fix that soon as it'll take us to the South of France in August. I also notice that the exhaust is blowing and I'm pretty sure it's from the centre joint and almost certainly caused by me removing the exhaust and refitting. I did use new gaskets, exhaust past and proper bolt torques but clearly I messed up somewhere. I think I'll just take it to an exhaust place. Fed up of working under the car and they can probably sort it in 10 minutes.
To drive, the car is best described as lively. It's got tonnes of go but I'm so used to NA straight sixes that the delivery seems a little alien to me with just the tiniest bit of lag before a big surge in power. It's plenty quick enough and the rear tyres really struggle to cope in the lower three gears. The traction control light is very active and it was warm and dry last night. The gearshift is lovely. The ride falls apart on really bumpy roads. In fairness I was giving it a bit of spanking on roads I know quite well last night but the rear in particular seems to run out of body control quite early. I do have a damaged bump stop on one side but I don't think that is a big factor. IT did have me pricing up a Birds set up when I got home! I could spend a fortune on this 'cheap' car if I'm not careful! Slight niggles aside, I have to admit I enjoyed driving it so much more than the Audi. You are much busier with inputs and steering correction and changing gear etc but it's so much more involving and that engine sounds lovely with the windows down.
This morning I gave it some more TLC. Full snow foam, wash, clay bar and wax and the interior got thorough clean too. The car is shabby in places but I think it cleans up enough for me to live with that for a while and see how I feel in a few months. I feel like there is little point tidying little things up and I either leave it or do some fairly major (costly!) paintwork. There is a good argument to leave it a little scruffy and not be too precious about it. I did touch in a few of the more prominent stone chips once it was clean though.
Sat in this spot in the garden for nearly 2 weeks while the Audi was sold. 17" winter wheels only just clear the front brakes.
Out for a bit of a spanking last night on some local roads.
Getting some TLC.
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Looks much better clean. Though don't look too close! Rear end looking much better than when I bought it. Bumper no longer has a hole in it and the new plate and badge help a lot too. I think in hindsight the plate would have looked better without a border and I'm not sure why it has no space in the middle but I'll live with it.
Interior was pretty clean when I got it so a good vac in here hasn't really changed much but the Andream unit massively updates things. It's quite a bargain for the functionality it adds.
Exhaust leak and air con to sort next...
Edited by Gad-Westy on Saturday 27th May 13:53
christhreadgill said:
Excellent progress. CarPlay is what I’ll throw in once mine is up and running & my wallet has recovered from the engine bills.
I think not having an LSD as standard lets these down - another option you can peruse on the Birds website!
It has a quaiffe LSD already...I think not having an LSD as standard lets these down - another option you can peruse on the Birds website!
The Andream set up comes highly recommended from me.
Hope the engine is coming along okay.
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